


Overshadowed

by Suzume



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4202091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kimblee has long been bending circumstances to his advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overshadowed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Shadowed Needs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1829461) by [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/Evil_Little_Dog). 
  * In response to a prompt by [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/Evil_Little_Dog) in the [remixmadness2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2015) collection. 



> Or: Overshadowed (the cages he chose remix)

         Solf lay in bed, propped up with care several pillows high so that he could see out the window. The blossoms were falling from the orange trees scattered around the side of the house and stretching along to the creek. The sun that crept through his window was undoubtedly a warmer sample than that scattered over the tops of the trees. If the wind blew down from the north, it could be cold at this time of year even if the view from his bedroom seemed warm and gentle. Too cold, certainly, for his mother to let him go out.

         And, say he snuck out against her wishes. He was probably in poor enough condition not to enjoy it enough to be worth the trouble.

         On the one hand, he had a weak constitution. On the other hand, Solf had discovered it was to his advantage to play up his frailties in front of his mother. If he would only fill the role she had cast him in, she could easily be manipulated into making any number of things go his way. School bored him and it was all too easy to convince her to let him stay home where he could focus on the studies that held his interest without a bunch of annoying other children getting in his way. Dad was strict, but Mom would argue on his behalf to bend whatever rules he felt like bending- "You ask too much of Solf," she would frown and eventually change his mind or at least make him relent as he turned away in disgust.

         Solf was, after all, the only child they had managed to have. Mom never talked about the series of stillbirths and miscarriages that had followed him, but he remembered little bits here and there- enough to piece the general difficulties together. Being a son was his sole quality so far as he could tell that qualified him for category of 'son his father wanted,' but since there were unlikely to be any others, he was just going to have to do. He did not share his father's interest in business or machinery. Textiles caught his eye only so far as they related to a nascent concern with fashion. Dad would never listen to music on the radio. The natural world held no fascination for him. Alchemy was worthless unless it could somehow bring up his profit margins.

         Mom, whatever she liked, could be trusted to support his interests. She was the one who brought home books for him. She would make a pot of tea, then come and sit with him, bringing along a plate of biscuits. "There's barely any completely empty place in the world if you're counting insects for company, hmm?" she remarked cheerfully over a drawing of several varieties of cave-dwelling insects, when he knew she wouldn't hesitate to sweep any of these creatures out the door immediately if they showed up in their house.

         Mom liked for Solf to stay home near her. There was the companionship of it- Dad thought servants were a waste of money- and then she was also better situated to take care of him if he spiked a sudden fever.

 

         After an entire youth spent like that, it hadn't been easy to convince Mom he would be able to take care of himself when he left home to study alchemy in the city, but he did his best to reassure her. He could simply have not bothered with it, but he wasn't ready to burn those bridges yet. If he failed in Central, he wanted the doors of home left open for him.

         Almost immediately upon arriving in Central and moving into the spare bedroom of the woman who had agreed to teach him, however, Solf decided it had probably been an unnecessarily cautious move. The city environment suited him, with its denseness, the rhythms of people like its tides. His alchemy instructor- his first step in exploring the art alongside another of his kind- seemed to suit him immediately as well. There was value in leaving one's options open, but he would succeed in Central on his first attempt. He would study, he would progress as an alchemist, and he would gain state certification.

         "You're not quite what I was expecting, Mr. Kimblee," Edie Ulster greeted him, holding out a hand covered by a rough, leathery glove (he would have taken it for a gardening glove- for handling roses, perhaps, or other plants with thorns- but who wore gardening gloves so far from their yard?). Their correspondence leading to the apprenticeship had been entirely by mail. Solf had outgrown his childhood frailties. He was sixteen and charming and more hints of the man he would be were creeping in every day.

         "I'm more than you expected and not less, I hope," Solf put on his best smile as he squeezed her hand. Edie was, he thought, rather attractive for her age.

         He was a quick learner, both in matters of alchemy and in teacher pleasing, now that he had finally found an authority it was worthwhile to please. He did as Edie told him, excepting when it suited him better to do otherwise, though he only disobeyed behind her back. She was jealous and didn't like to see him with any other woman or man on his arm. As limiting as this could be, it wasn't as if Solf- or Kimblee, as he increasingly styled his new adult self- had any meaningful feelings for these lover-acquaintances. If they objected to maintaining the relationship within some bounds of secrecy, he simply shed them all the faster.

         Edie kept him housed and fed and intermittently entertained for four years, until he received his certification his first time taking the test. Even after moving into his own place, Kimblee make any specific effort to break from Edie's influence until his military duties drew him east. Again, as with his cautious drifting from his mother, it was probably unnecessary, but a wise man was prepared for all eventualities.

 

         Then, when he chose to keep the stone upon the conclusion of events in Ishval, his ties with both his teacher and his parents were more or less simultaneously broken. Edie wrote him one brief missive. Her words didn't quite ring surprised, but her tone was heavy and tired. She sounded old. He heard nothing from his mother (she had probably taken it hardest). His father promptly disowned him.

         The cell in Central Prison had no pretensions as anything other than a cell, but Kimblee suffered it quietly, secure in his belief that the Führer and his _special friends_ would see to it he not only failed to face the firing squad, but was released into their supervision sooner or later.

         It was good he had read so widely and done so many things in the years prior to his imprisonment. Because of his exceptional memory, he was able to revisit them in his mind. The prison environment wasn't nearly as stimulating.

 

         When freedom at last called his name, it was, as he might have guessed, by their order. He was given a mission and funds and connections. And, seemingly, a very long leash, as he wasn't accompanied by Envy and needed only to check in with the Führer by phone. General Raven came and went within a day.

         It wasn't until Kimblee had given Edward Elric enough of a beating to keep him down for a while as he explored a portion of the mines beneath the Briggs Mountains that he learned how carefully the Homunculi had been watching him after all. A long, flexible leash was still a leash. The shadow could watch, it could move, it could cut.

         The masters he had now lacked all the well-meaning-ness of those who had come before. There was no going back. There was no room for mistakes.

         There was nothing that could make him feel half so alive.


End file.
